Interviewing

A practical guide for citizen journalists

Interviewing resources

Other Training Tools, Articles and Examples

The Yahoo! Style Guide is a comprehensive list of guidelines you can use when writing for the online audience. It includes tips for writing for the web, crafting strong headlines and optimizing your site for SEO.

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Taping interviews:
The legal issues

If you want to tape-record an interview, particularly on the phone, you should make sure you understand your state's laws about asking permission. We have written a short summary of the law to help guide you through what could be a minefield.

NewsU , a professional journalism training site published by The Poynter Institute, has, among its many excellent Webinars and online courses, "The Interview," by Fellow Chip Scanlan. Pacifica Radio "Grassroots Journalism Training Materials" includes several links under "Interviewing Skills."

BBC Training & Development has created an "Interviewing for Radio" Module.

The Poynter Institute's online bibliography of interviewing resources has dozens of great articles on everything from emotional interviews to using anonymous sources. Also has a good book bibliography.

Society of Professional Journalists training tutorials address topics such as note-taking and live broadcast reporting.

Off the Record / On Deep Background

American Journalism Review features some prominent journalists chiming in on these often-vague definitions.

Knight Digital Media Center's OJR post, "There's no such thing as 'off-the-record' anymore," addresses how the changing media landscape is transforming understandings of "on" and "off" the record.

Sites Recommended by Citizen Journalists for Examples of Good Interviewing

Appalachian Media Institute features video and audio pieces produced by and about people in central Appalachia

Educational Video Center focuses on youth-produced pieces that address social change.

KEC TV, a Florida-based television news program for Canal Point Elementary School, features a series of interviews by Damon Weaver, a 10-year-old who has garnered some fame for interviewing Joe Biden and Caroline Kennedy, among others.

Studs Terkel, the late, great master of the interview, has a Web site that features downloadable versions of some of his interviews that illustrate the dividing lines of class and race in the United States.

WashingtonPost.com's "On Being" project provides a good example of unmediated interviews with "ordinary" people.


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